false dreams
Reality is not taking a pill to see yourself waking up to a world outside of this – it is seeing the world as it really is.
When the journalist asked me about my body, it was like she was asking me to awaken her from the most gorgeous dream. I have seen that dream all of my life. It is perfect houses with nice lawns. It is Memorial Day cookouts, block associations, and driveways. The Dream is treehouses and the Cub Scouts. The Dream smells like peppermint but tastes like strawberry shortcake. And for so long I have wanted to escape into the Dream, to fold my country over my head like a blanket.
Death to the demon of the American Dream! Death to the spirit of Manifest Destiny! I pray that we would choose you King Jesus – resurrect us from lies, bring deliverance to our persistent slumber.
Very few Americans will directly proclaim that they are in favor of black people being left to the streets. But a very large number of Americans will do all they can to preserve the Dream. No one directly proclaimed that schools ere designed to sanctify failure and destruction. But a great number of educators spoke of “personal responsibility” in a country authored and sustained by a criminal irresponsibility. The point of this language of “intention” and “personal responsibility” is broad exoneration. Mistakes were made. Bodies were broken. People were enslaved. We meant well. We tried our best. “Good intention” is a hall pass through history, a sleeping pill that ensures the Dream.
- Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates